As I was leaving for home late on Monday night a friend messaged me the following “Harvest Moon Tonight”. So I thought I would look out for it. There it was illuminating the night sky. I messaged another friend, who is a bit of a lunar enthusiast, to ask if she had seen it, she hadn’t. She was a bit caught up in a few personal troubles. I enjoyed the moon as I drove home, it gave me a sense of reassurance, as well as connection to others who noticed and did not notice it too. I felt blessed by the light of the harvest moon.
So often in life we do not see what we have. It is so easy to just wander on not offering thanks and praise for the simple things we have. Sometimes we only really recognise it when perhaps what we have is under threat or our eyes are opened by the struggles of another. So often it is easy to turn away to avert our eyes to the suffering of others; to get lost in the things that we think that we lack, when truth be told if we took stock we would noticed a bounteous harvest both within us and all around us. A harvest not only for ourselves, but one to share.
This failing to notice what we have brings to mind a story I once heard. It came to mind as I passed several homeless people in the town of Altrincham. Homelessness is a growing problem in this our time and space.
A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said : ' I am blind, please help.' There were only a few coins in the hat.
A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.
Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write? "
The man said, " I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."
I wrote : ' Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.'
Both signs told people that the boy was blind. But the first sign simply said the boy was blind. The second sign told people that they were so lucky that they were not blind. It is no surprise that the second sign was more effective.
We do not always notice what we have. The blessings we have been given, until we see that another no long possesses the gift that is ours. We should offer thanks for the things we have and use them in creative and positive ways for the good of all. A good and useful life is one in which we count our blessings, one in which we enjoy our days with a heart of gratitude. Gratitude though is not merely saying thank you, although it does begin there, it is offering something with what we have been given, not just for ourselves but for others too.
One of the great sadnesses of life is that we don’t always see what is within us. We do not recognise and harvest our gifts, and share them with others. Too many people believe that they have so little to offer. Too often we look to others to fulfil our needs, failing to recognise what is within us. For what we need is here already within us. “What we need is here” as Wendell berry so beautiful observed in his poem “The Wild Geese”, which I offer to you
“The Wild Geese” By Wendell Berry
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer’s end. In time’s maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
What we need is here. Within each of us, within life, within community. Wendell Berry is so right. Too often we think what we need is over there, in some distant place, some other place, some Heaven, some Nirvana, some Ithaka, some Promised land of milk and honey. Too often we fail to see what is within us, that what we need is here.
What we need is here; what we need to do is learn to trust and draw upon the abundance within us and between us. Is there really not enough? Is there a scarcity crisis? Or is that we are just failing to use what is already here and to share it properly. What we need is here. We need to learn how to tap into the endless resources within ourselves and humanity as a whole, there is an abundance in life and within each of us. The problem is that we waste it or fail to truly recognise what is here.
It begins within ourselves. We need to recognise what is within us, to reap the harvest and to share it where it is needed, thus encouraging others to do the same. Now whether the problem is material, social, emotional, mental or spiritual. The solution is here, “what we need is here”. The key is to reap the harvest and to keep on sowing and encouraging others to do likewise.
Too often we fail to recognise what is within us. We act and believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, that we have nothing to offer. Gosh what the world needs is people who are awake to what is within them and who are willing to share in their abundance. All that we need is within us. Not just us alone though, but within our relationships, our friendships, our communities, this our shared world. The tricky part is finding a way to harvest this. As Wendell Berry so beautifully put it, we do not need to wait for a “new earth or heaven” in order to live by the truth that what we need is here. All we need is “to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear.” Then we will see and gain access to the resources within and between us, and we will reap the abundant harvest both for ourselves, our communities and human society. We can share in the amazing abundance of self and community.
The last eighteen months have been difficult for everyone. It has been a time of great loss. There has been the deep loss of people, the painful grief that comes when we lose someone we love, many of us have experienced this awful pain. There has also been the loss of the quality of our lives and security also. Hard times.
It has not all been about loss. I have seen and experienced other deeper connections in recent weeks, particularly the richness of the people in my life. I have also reexperienced so much else from my life. I have in recent days begun to reap harvest from the past. Some of which has come from seeds sown long ago. Maybe this is what Autumn is truly about, this season that we have just entered.
John O’Donohue compared autumn to old age. He suggested that, “the autumn of our lives,” is the time when we harvest the lessons from our lives. It is a time to gather all the moments of our lives, even the ones that have been seemingly lost or even discarded as unpleasant and “holding them as one.” O’Donohue also suggested that the autumn of our lives is the time to harvest our souls wholly so as to reach a deeper understanding. He did not see the soul as being some kind of invisible organ within us more as a presence enfolding our bodies. He suggested that life’s autumn is a time to explore our souls, so as to develop new strength, poise and confidence and therefore enter a ‘quiet delight’ as we harvest our own lives.
O’Donohue was not suggesting that these new understandings just come instantly at this time, without effort. Labour is required just as labour is required to bring in the crops at harvest time. Nor are they merely yielded from the present time, they are built on years of experiences of the ploughing and planting of life. They are the crops of success and failure of year after year and the lessons learnt.
This though does not have to only occur at the end of our lives, it can happen at any time. If we are willing to reap the harvest of what is already within us; if we are willing to recognise that “what we need is here”. We just need to reap the inner harvest of our lives and to share it with one another. How do we do this? Well by giving our time and attention. This is the greatest gift you can give another. John O’Donohue said that this is the final understanding that comes from the soul’s harvest. This understanding that the rhythm of the seasons, the rhythm of time itself, is part of the wisdom that we learn. We need to learn to become a part of that and then respond to the need that is here. Like the man who helped the blind boy.
“All we need is here” we just need to find a way to harvest it and learn to share it with one another. How do we do this? Well by simply giving each other our time, by blessing each other with our holy presence.
This harvest I am offering thanks and praise for the life of my friends the people I have known the rich harvests they have shared with me. I offer thanks and praise for all the lives I have known and all that they have given to me and countless others, the wisdom that they shared. I offer thanks and praise for all that has been so freely given and I hope I can make the most of it and pass it on to those who follow.
“All we need is here” we just need to find a way to harvest it and learn to share it with one another.
Harvest is a time to offer thanks for all that has been given us. To do so we need to see what has been given to us. It is so easy to see what we do not have and therefore fail to see the gifts that we are surrounded by, gifts that are there for all of us to share in, gifts that are so freely given. “All we need is here” we just need to find a way to harvest it and learn to share it with one another
“All we need is here” Let us offer thanks and praise for what is here. Let us reap the abundant harvest and share the gifts we have been given. In so doing we will bless life with our holy presence and it will bless us in return.
Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"
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